


Bottoms Up!

by DwarvenBeardSpores



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Alchemy, As much introspection as will fit into a 6 second combat round while thinking very fast, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode 139: Blobs Spikes Spiders & Booms, Friendship, Gen, Introspection, Or at least the promise of friendship, Spiders, Vomiting, emetophobia warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21777706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DwarvenBeardSpores/pseuds/DwarvenBeardSpores
Summary: Cel drinks a potion of spiders, and you might think that'd be simple, right? Nope! There are all sorts of variables and implications and tangentially relevant facts that go into an action like that, and Cel thinks them allafterthey've chugged the bottle.Anyway, it's really awesome.
Relationships: Celiquillithon "Cel" Sidebottom & Zolf Smith
Comments: 6
Kudos: 45





	Bottoms Up!

**Author's Note:**

> Me, a fool: I don’t think I could possibly love Cel any more than I--
> 
> Cel: *voluntarily vomits spiders*
> 
> Me: I stand corrected.
> 
> Also I want you to know that I wrote the bulk of this in about an hour directly after listening to the episode for the first time, because I just really wanted to explore the physicality of chugging spider potion. I sat on it a while until I figured out what else I wanted from it, which was an extra layer of introspection.

"Just one second. Uh, don’t look.” 

It’s a rush, and Cel does like the rush. Not that clambering through a big ol’ tower filled with kobolds and goo monsters and lightning _isn’t_ a rush, but there’s something special about potions, about the way they get inside you and just _change_ things. A body and its internal organs are just as malleable as the chemical reactions in a potion or the physical properties of, of, of anything you could think to build a device with, really. Alchemy is just engineering for the body. 

They'd almost chugged down the Mega Juice, because Cel cannot wait to run further experiments on that one. And going Mega would sure be one way to deal with the problem at hand! But they don’t _really_ know what that'd do, and there’s probably some fatigue effects in there, and they might be reckless but they’re not a fool. Better to go with something tested for now, and really, when do they get a chance to drink the spider bottle? A swarm of poisonous spiders is useful _slightly less frequently_ than you might think. 

And it is _fun._

They toss their head back and tiny liquid legs skitter into their mouth. They poise just above Cel’s throat but Cel swallows emphatically and the legs give way, tumbling over themselves on the way down. Cel has gotten very good at swallowing things that don’t want to be swallowed. 

It happens in an instant. The legs clear Cel’s throat and are almost immediately replaced by a hot, squirming sensation that blooms in their stomach and surges its way back upwards. Spiders form from magic and stomach acid and Cel lets their jaw hang open to release them, even as they wonder (as they’ve wondered before) what sort of interesting things would happen if they kept their mouth shut. Would the spiders come out their ears? Their ass? Straight through their skin? Would they stay inside and keep building until every crevice in Cel’s body is filled with them? 

These are experiments for a later date. 

Their stomach heaves as, just, an _improbable_ number of spiders fall onto the kobolds below. It’s great. It’s a rush. Cel holds tight to the staircase railing so they don’t tip over with the force of it. Below, creatures start to shriek. 

And Cel’s not a mean person. They like kobolds. Kobolds are great! These kobolds absolutely deserve better than being minions in Yoshida Shoin's evil goo lair, but the way to stop that from happening is to finish this mission and stop that poopy-head from hurting anyone else, and the way to do _that_ is to spit spiders. What were they saying? Oh right. They’re not a mean person but _fuck_ does it feel good to do something weird and useful and hear people freaking out about it. 

Hopefully not their new friends, though. Like, it’s fine if they are freaking out. It wouldn’t be the first time Cel had lost friends like that. But hopefully not. Cel is out of bombs and could use some help getting through the rest of this lighthouse-lab thing and these folks are surprisingly good at what they do. 

Cel heaves for a few more seconds (it takes a total of six seconds start-to-finish; they’ve been counting, they’ve been _analyzing)_ , and spits a few stragglers down onto the chaos below. There are always gonna be a few of those; they feel a couple more forming and scuttling up their throat even as they turn to look at the others. 

Azu’s taken their directive not to look, and is instead keeping a worried eye on Hamid, who just looks sort of generally uneasy which honestly might just be how he looks. Zolf is staring, though. A little worse for wear after being impaled a whole bunch, but he gives Cel a half smile. 

“Fun.” 

The spiders in Cel’s mouth push easily through their grin, and they brush them aside. 

_Fun._ They knew it. They _knew_ Zolf got them. Zolf is interesting and has good ideas and despite a rough bit there at the beginning Cel likes him so they say, “yeah, actually, I could describe the effect to you, it, it’s, it’s very--” 

"Let’s do this later,” Zolf interrupts. He nods in the direction of the screaming kobolds and _wow_ that’s a gnarly scar. And a point. Now is not the time. But later. 

They were already gonna definitely talk later cause Zolf’s been hit by lightning, and Cel’s experiences may not be everyone’s experiences but _now they have someone to compare with._

And there is so much they have to say. About electricity, and the way it gets deep into you and just sorta rattles you apart at the seams. About how everybody acts like the body is this fixed thing and this marker of value and it’s _not,_ it’s really not . It’s just as malleable as anything else if you use the right stuff, and that is not even a gender thing, well, it might be? But it also might be a half-elf thing and it _also_ might just be a _fact._

They’ve tried talking this through with Jasper and Jasper is great but he really does more of the listening in these types of conversations? And Cel has a feeling Zolf and this new group would have a _lot_ of opinions. They would _push,_ and that push is where you get new ideas and maybe explosions. Cel is all about the push. 

Cel is probably going to burst from not saying all this immediately, but then they belch up a few more little buddies and that feels better, so maybe it’s a bit of a multi-layered feeling. They lean back over the railing to see how the kobolds are getting on, and they’re definitely not clumped up so much anymore, so that’s good. That’s great! 

Now they’ve just gotta get through here and deal with Cel’s archnemesis and fix everything he’s done with this entire place and _then_ they can talk science. 

And what a rush that’ll be. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I’d love to hear what you thought.
> 
> You can also find me on tumblr as dwarven-beard-spores, twitter as @beardspores, and dreamwidth as DwarvenBeardSpores.
> 
> And take care of yourselves, y'all, I love you.


End file.
